


no time for regret

by yesterdaychild



Series: Happy Eruri Week! [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Eruri Week, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 19:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesterdaychild/pseuds/yesterdaychild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi crawls into Erwin’s bed the first night back from his very first mission with the Survey Corps. </p><p>Written for Day One of Eruri Week. Prompt: Cleanup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no time for regret

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr: http://erwindanchou.tumblr.com/post/70644319557/eruri-week-day-one-no-time-for-regret
> 
> I'll be posting the fics as I clean them up!

Levi crawls into Erwin’s bed the first night back from his very first mission with the Survey Corps. He slams the door open with no preamble, making Erwin sit straight up, and before Erwin knows it there’s a warm body hauling him close and fumbling their lips together in the darkness.

Levi kisses him with the same ferocity and desperation that Erwin had seen today on their mission. He’d kept Levi close - partly because he was the only one who could keep him under control - and though as Commander he was kept safest in the formation, no mission nowadays went unmolested by Titans. Levi had fought with the strength and skill of a platoon of men, and Erwin had known his recruitment had been a success.

But Levi is now pulling him close, fingers scrabbling against the back of his shirt like he wants to crawl right into Erwin’s skin. Erwin kisses him back - he had felt the strong attraction Levi had for him and tacitly acknowledged that Levi was pretty fit, but had stoutly refused to even entertain thoughts of them taking the risk of attachment. But now Levi is crawling into his space and his heart and his lap and who is he, really, to be strong enough to say no?

Levi pulls hard at Erwin’s shirt, and that is when Erwin pulls back. Hands firm on Levi’s shoulders, he pulls himself away, leaning back when Levi tries to lunge forward again. He holds Levi’s frame in his palms, and that is when he realises that he’s practically holding Levi together; that’s how hard the dark-haired man is shaking. He’s shaking and trembling and alarm bells go off in Erwin’s head. Erwin instantly snaps into soldier and commander mode, running through the list of post-traumatic symptoms - 

As suddenly as he had entered it, Levi scrambles off the bed and to the window. He leans over and Erwin hears him dry heaving. Erwin clambers off his bed and is at the window in an instant. Levi clutches the windowsill, and he continues to retch, but nothing comes up. Erwin begins to rub his hand up and down Levi’s back, soothing him with upward strokes of his broad palm, rubbing him down the way he tended to his sick and nervous horses. Levi heaves and shakes under Erwin’s touch until tears form in the corners of his eyes, but before long he slumps, weak, onto the ground at Erwin’s feet. 

Erwin slides with him, and pulls him into his arms. Levi shakes, but this time with tears. Erwin presses kisses into Levi’s hair and rubs his arms up and down, all the time painfully conscious of the open door and the gaping maw of the darkened hallway beyond. But no one hears and no one comes, even when Levi has subsided in his arms.

"Are you feeling better?" Erwin finally asks.

Levi sighs, and part of the tension leaves his body. He looks up at Erwin, and his face is a mess, sweat and spit leaving his skin clammy and pale. Levi stares at him searchingly as if seeing him for the first time, and rasps, “Today, I saw with the greatest clarity that we don’t have enough life to waste on coy secrets, Erwin Smith. Fantasies are the privilege of those who have enough time leftover for regret. You and I are both not such lucky men.”

Erwin looks at Levi, who holds his gaze, silently challenging Erwin to tell him he is wrong. Erwin does not. Instead, he gets up to close the door, then goes to his washstand and wets a face towel. He gives it to Levi, who takes it and slowly begins to scrub at his face until it is pink, but clean.

"I can leave," Levi says when he is done, handing him the towel.

"You’ll do nothing of the sort," Erwin replies, tossing the towel into the washbasin to deal with on the morrow. He stands up, tugging Levi up by the hand and pulling him over to the bed. He crawls in, and tugs Levi down and against his chest. "We don’t have time for such regret."


End file.
